


Blind Raise

by Pradelle



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, James Bond (Craig movies), Shooting Dogs (2005)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, Slice of Life, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26203498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pradelle/pseuds/Pradelle
Summary: When one’s life is a castle which foundations are built on intricate equations and ciphering, one slight miscalculation can throw the whole structure off balance.Le Chiffre knows he should care that his carefully crafted existence is threatening to collapse, its solid and austere walls blown off by something as unpredictable as the whims of love.He doesn’t.
Relationships: Le Chiffre/Joe Connor
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	Blind Raise

**Author's Note:**

> 50% self-indulgent, but 100% a gift for my friends from Le Joe Nation. Love you guys! ❤︎

_Je l'ai trouvée devant ma porte,_

_Un soir, que je rentrais chez moi._

_Partout, elle me fait escorte._

_Elle est revenue, la voilà,_

_La renifleuse des amours mortes._

_Elle m'a suivie, pas à pas._

_La garce, que le Diable l'emporte !_

_Elle est revenue, elle est là._

— _La Solitude, Barbara_

Blind Raise: In poker, the action of raising without looking at one's cards.

* * *

The silk is a pleasant caress on his bare ankles as he begins to stir, limbs tangled in the disheveled sheets, mind caught in the hazy reminder of the beautiful debauchery that has unfolded in the same bed before dawn. His eyes shift behind his eyelids, making the scar around his left eye dance as he slowly arises from sleep. There is a warmth in his chest that has been growing familiar for the past few months now, linked to a comfortable soreness in his body that he would have been inclined to despise, had it taken its roots in anything else than the expression of his vulnerable affection.

Long ivory curtains brush against the marble flooring, gently swayed by the wind blowing through open windows, a tender lullaby that smells faintly of salt and of the hortensias blossoming outside under the sun; a parade of spring in bright bloom for the privacy of their eyes alone.

The seagulls are already awake, he notes, and he pictures them swirling above the sea, entertained by the breathing of the city slowly coming to life, of cafés opening their welcoming doors and vacationers dragging their surfboards to the beach.

Quietly, the ocean breeze sneaks into the room and whispers to him like a lover trying to make the sun jealous, placing salty kisses on his naked back and wrapping him into another blanket of comfort in the absence of the only thing he truly craves. He thinks about the sea below, the tenderness and the whims of its waves, an acute reminder of the duality of love in the opposition between its gentleness and the way it can rouse in the throes of passion.

Le Chiffre has always called himself many things, but he never had the pretension of considering himself a poet before meeting Joe.

The bed is empty, yet the space next to him radiates warmth under the palm of his hand. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that out of the pile of clothing scattered on the floor, Joe’s pants will be missing. He pictures his lover downstairs making a call or leaning against the railing outside, his eyes lingering over the splendid view from Le Chiffre’s villa like he enjoys doing late in the evening and early in the morning. Perched on top of a small hill, right above the old port, it offers a view of Biarritz that he himself has never appreciated the way it ought to be.

So he lets Joe enjoy it for him.

It’s unexpected. A lot of things about Le Chiffre’s existence lately have been unexpected.

In many ways, his life has always been the mirror of a controlled, substantial, and never-ending game of poker. Mechanical, both personal and impersonal for he takes advantage of the cards with his own gain in mind while being aware that in doing so, he lets the cards dictate his entire life. More than that, years of experience have taught him to manipulate emotions, both his own and the ones of his foes. Fear, over-confidence, and anger can be a devastating tool when mastered and exploited by the right person.

Poker has always been a fascinating, intricate, and beautiful adventure on the high seas of human nature. He began by watching from the side, spotting the mistakes of the other players before they could even foresee the inevitable fallout of their actions. Being a frank observer, he has been a witness to the greed of man. One could say he has even been an active participant himself.

Le Chiffre is a man who finds satisfaction in his ability to predict the aftermath of every move. It is the only control he feels he can exert without boundaries, indulging in his gargantuan appetite for anticipation and domination through the finesse of his talent for the arts of mathematics.

So it does come as a surprise when, in a strange twist of events, almost nothing about Joe Connor is predictable.

He takes pleasure in the little things, like the soothing smell of a freshly cut bouquet of lilies on the table of his favorite café, whenever he has enough time to stop by and enjoy a few hours of tranquility before his next lecture.

His spontaneity and playfulness can be a little overwhelming, as can be the raw energy that emanates from him when he allows himself to dive into a topic he is passionate about, but Le Chiffre enjoys the free-spirited man his enthusiasm and passion have shaped him into.

Much to Le Chiffre’s occasional irritation, Joe is often late, sometimes early, but almost never on time. His need to be useful coupled with his recklessness often brings him into foreign territory, but Joe delights in the knowledge that all his efforts are guided by the desire to do the right thing, for all the good reasons. Which he does. And surprisingly, the ego that Le Chiffre has seen in so many players after a few successful rounds doesn’t seem to have made its way to Joe Connor.

On the bad days, Joe wakes up sweating and shaking in the middle of the night, plagued by nightmares and stripped of his bravery, chased by the memories of machetes and blood oozing onto the ground and staining the land of a country he has left a decade ago. A single noise can send him into a state of despair, paralyzed to the bone with his trauma laid bare for Le Chiffre to see.

He sees, and he comforts him. With Joe’s warm body safely tucked against his own, he whispers words of tenderness into his ear and wonders how this little man has managed to turn his entire world upside down with a smile and a peek into a life that Le Chiffre never allowed himself to believe he would have.

If the universe had been consistent in its lucidity, they should not, under any circumstances, have met. They were born facing different seas, lived under opposite stars, and will probably take their last breath in very different ways, buried thousands of miles apart from each other. The unpredictability that a life with Joe would offer starts to make itself known long before it becomes a reality.

Le Chiffre isn’t a stranger to pulsions and the uncertainty they tend to lead to, but all the risks he takes are calculated. He analyzes everything, the possible paths and outcomes so that when he does a blind raise his formidable mind has already shaped a rough idea, at the very least, of all the possibilities. At best, the exact percentage of how close he is to winning, so that the blindness characterized by this particular move isn’t actually one.

Le Chiffre is, in more ways than one, the opposite of Joe Connor.

And because the universe is anything but coherent when it plays with the strings of love, they found each other.

The mathematician in him is, needless to say, terrified. The few months following their first encounter are spent in a near-constant state of confusion over his inability to perceive with clarity the situation he’s fallen into and the exact nature of what is quickly growing into pure adoration for the younger man. He tries to run modified equations in his mind, meticulously adapted to his situation, again and again as he categorizes every possible outcome, each based on probability and rationality.

As time goes by, he catches himself reworking his calculations again, this time in favor of appeal rather than the odds of them becoming true. It evolves from what is most likely to happen to what he wishes would happen. Even the most improbable.

Strangely, it is the most improbable that ends up shaping itself into existence. 

It manifests in a late winter evening with the sensation of Joe’s soft lips pressed against his own for the very first time, both of them huddled together under a lamppost, immersed in a feeling of euphoria born from the candor of a mundane evening spent in each other’s company. No grand gesture, no expensive display of wealth as the only way of courtship he has ever known, courtesy of his somewhat old-fashioned beliefs when it comes to dating and the pleasure he takes in showing off his influence.

Instead, he sits down at a small round table with checkered tablecloth for a dinner framed by candlelight. The restaurant is hidden between a bookshop with a decaying wooden storefront andwhat seems to have once been a florist, before it closed down and allowed ivy growing on the balcony above to fall down and reclaim it in a strange irony of fate. A testament of the picturesque world Le Chiffre found himself unwillingly dragged into. All of this because Joe promised him the food was good.

When the end of the evening comes and Joe kisses him, simple and sweet, the numbers get lost within his mind.

And at first, he thinks, _this is wrong_ , this is not the result he should have logically expected. His mind is misguided by the impulses of his feeble and treacherous heart. It requires an immediate correction.

But trying to correct the equations with a blind hand proves itself to be both futile and prejudicial to his own stability of mind and heart.

Le Chiffre has always built himself around calculations, percentages, and mathematical predictions. He operates in the shadows, pulling the strings for his own interest, both unwilling to watch and indifferent to the way the fallout of his business unfolds on guilty or innocent individuals. He has shaped his character in casinos all around the world, from Monte-Carlo to Singapore, and even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a billionaire’s yacht.

He has seen it all.

And yet, nothing prepares him for the sound of footsteps walking into the bedroom, for the feeling of the bed gently sagging under somebody’s weight, and the smell of black tea reaching his nose and spreading into his lungs in a loving embrace.

His eyes finally flutter open when he feels the light touch of warm lips against his forehead, barely a second, but enough for him to be reminded that Joe is a far better lover than the morning breeze.

“Good morning,” Joe whispers, mindful of his lover’s sleepy state induced by his recent awakening.“Slept well?”

The words are spoken with such care and gentleness that Le Chiffre’s throat sizes up with emotion. For a man who has always taken pride in being able to pull the strings in a poker game and express his supremacy through the grandeur of his skills, he had never expected that small gestures would mean so much to him.

Out of the few women who had occasionally shared his bed with hardly more than what he would describe as uninterested affection, none of them ever did anything genuine for him. They played their part, holding onto his arm and showing themselves to hungry eyes when needed, all the while allowing him to blow off the steam and release his accumulated tension. If anything, they were nothing more than calculated relationships, as mechanical as the numbers he works with on a daily basis.

Finally tugged out of the daze induced by the unfamiliar gesture, Le Chiffre gives him a reply half dissimulated by his accent, made thicker than usual by sleep. He doesn’t have much to add, his fondness blossoming in the simple knowledge that Joe is back to warm up his bed.

Le Chiffre knows all about the lack of genuine human contact. The solitude, in all of her bitter splendor, saw the orphan in him, the lost little boy aching to be seen and loved, and hanged herself at his neck, curled up around him in a delicate but merciless embrace. She stood by his side when he had to fend off for himself and followed him, every day and every night, until she was a constant presence escorting him through the long and empty corridors of his house, decorating the pale mornings and desolate nights. Once he had opened his door for her she let herself in, draped herself over his shoulders like a dark veil and took possession of him.

Joe is a breath of fresh air against the solitude that has spent decades making its nest within his ribcage, squeezing through his ribs and refusing to let go of his bones, unyielding and heavy. And yet, he feels like he can blow it away with a single exhale whenever he is near Joe.

He slowly sits up against the headboard while Joe leaves and comes back with his own cup of tea, settling down next to him. _So British_ , he muses. So little ruled by mathematical reasoning.

When the warm liquid slides on his tongue, he realizes that his existence might not have to revolve entirely around numbers and calculations anymore. His life with Joe is a new experience because of his inability to predict him and where this is going to lead him. The unpredictability of Joe Connor takes his mind into uncharted territories.

Instead of mathematics, he has begun to see life through a new perspective. Le Chiffre has never been a man of literature and art, even though wealth often leads to such interests, no matter how superficial in their nature. But watching Joe makes him want to speak with the tongue of a poet and touch him with the hands of a painter.

He is not even close to this; he will never be anything more than a false Rimbaud, a false Monet.

In another life, maybe. The thought is nice, for as long as it lasts.

His hand brushes against Joe’s chestnut curls, their color radiating the warmth of winter hearths against porcelain skin, and he is unable to stop himself from playing with them. Joe watches him and the initial confusion on his face quickly fades into a smile that does nothing but accentuates his beauty. His very own Persephone, worthy of the most beautiful poems and the ardor of an endless passion, instead of cold calculations and what would have once been a fleeting interest restricted by the belief that loneliness would always be his only muse.

How terrible it is to love something that numbers can’t explain.

They can, to an extent, help him understand the man behind the books.

In the morning, Joe Connor likes his tea with two cubes of sugar. He owns five pairs of shoes, two of which have been gifted to him by Le Chiffre after deciding that this was a number worth rising. It takes him exactly twenty-two minutes to drive from his apartment to the university where he teaches, and he prides himself on being an early riser, always up before seven in the morning except when Le Chiffre decides to keep them both in bed for a few more hours. He always has more than one book on his nightstand, bookmarked but never forgotten, and his favorite movie is one hour, forty-five minutes and sixteen seconds long. They have watched it more than once.

Numbers make up a large part of Joe’s life, but if anything, they render the man even more perplexing than he already is.

And if the tragedy of it is unmistakable, Le Chiffre also starts to see the outlines of its beauty.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

The older man smiles, “Nothing you should be concerned about, mon coeur.”

Joe seems to deem the words an acceptable answer, and Le Chiffre notices how his own heart clenches at the silent implication of trust. Still, that doesn’t stop Joe from putting the cup of tea on the nightstand in favor of draping an arm across his lover’s waist.

He knows when not to push, so instead, he lets his lips wander over Le Chiffre’s shoulder in an open-mouthed display of devotion.

And maybe Le Chiffre hasn’t seen it all, after all.

“I was thinking of showing you Arcangues tonight,” Joe says, his fingers gently tapping against his Le Chiffre’s hip while his smile caresses his skin. “There’s this church, which is registered as a historical monument. They say the village truly becomes alive at night. I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”

Le Chiffre watches the gold bracelet around Joe’s wrist catch the sunlight. It’s an expensive little thing, probably worth more than all of Joe’s belongings put together. He knows Joe dislikes everything that is ostentatious. Yet, he lets Le Chiffre indulge in the pleasure of spoiling him from time to time. Money isn’t the way to buy Joe’s affection, which was made clear right from the start. Joe sometimes lets himself be taken to expensive restaurants and be shown off at Le Chiffre’s side during a poker game, but these aren’t the nights Le Chiffre likes the best.

He finds solace in the quiet nights, the ones spent with Joe at home or in secluded locations that tourists aren’t aware of, listening to the teacher tell him about the historic past of the city for hours while the sun settles under the horizon, their hands clasped in each other.

It’s easy to let himself be carried by the waves of tranquility, knowing that as long as he has Joe, they will always bring his body back to shore.

“Does that mean I will have to sit on that awful little scooter of yours because you refuse to let my chauffeur drive us around unless it is absolutely necessary?” he reminds him, half teasing, half curious.

“Absolutely. And don’t lie, I know you like it.”

“The things I let you get away with.”

Joe’s reply consists of a smile and bright blue eyes plunging into his own and he thinks, _please_ , _don’t look at me like that_. _I will bet all of myselfin a heartbeat without even looking at my hand if you keep looking at me like that._

The beautiful tragedy resides in the fact that he already has.

Somehow, Joe must know. His eyes shift to the top of Le Chiffre’s head and when he speaks again, it is with a tone that indicates his intention to tease.

“Your hair’s a mess,” he chuckles.

Joe’s laugh is something he has never been able to resist partaking in.

“Whose fault is that?”

“I’m not complaining,” Joe defends himself, “I love it when your hair is all slicked back. But this? This feels like something only I am allowed to see.”

“Only you.”

Only him, he decides. As Joe is the only one who can break down the walls of Le Chiffre’s need for control, it seems only fair that he should be the only witness to the expression and the result of his raw adoration.

Life with Joe feels like being blind every day. Each move he makes could take him to an unexpected outcome. Every now and then, the solitude attempts to come back, waiting for him on his porch and trying to lure him to his doom like a siren made of nothingness. But every time, it is easy to close the door now that he knows what is waiting for him inside of his own house.

Nowadays, he wants to get drunk on the feeling of Joe, to spend sleepless nights loving him and being cherished in return. Like Joe, to find comfort in the little things.

A warm hand cradles his cheek, directing his face to meet his lover’s gaze once more. Joe smiles at him and for once, he finds out that he enjoys not knowing the answer to everything.

Let the earth move a little, he thinks, and throw his calculations off. When it comes to Joe Connor, the consequences of a miscalculation are hardly worth the hassle.

**Author's Note:**

> Je veux encore rouler des hanches,
> 
> Je veux me saouler de printemps,
> 
> Je veux m'en payer des nuits blanches,
> 
> À cœur qui bat, à cœur battant.
> 
> Avant que sonne l'heure blême
> 
> Et jusqu'à mon souffle dernier,
> 
> Je veux encore dire “je t’aime"
> 
> Et vouloir mourir d'aimer.


End file.
